I know they like to give this award to GMs who take their teams out of the dumpster and that it’s way too early to put anything in ink, but the NBA has to recognize Brad Stevens this year, not only for his accomplishments this year but how he was able to accomplish it with moves from previous years.

It was a massive risk trading Marcus Smart and many were against it. I think a lot of people don’t realize or consider that we got 2 first round draft picks AND Porzingis in the deal and that one of those picks helped get Jrue Holiday (unfortunately it might be a decent pick).

We lost players trending down (Marcus Smart), that were injury prone (R. Williams, Brogdon, Gallinari) or bench players (G. Williams) and were able to outbid the rest of the Championship contenders for the services of Jrue Holiday.

We’ve been knocking on the championship door for years and that’s the problem, it’s difficult to take a championship caliber team to a tier above without retooling it or drastically altering the team’s chemistry and you don’t get as much help in the draft.

To really appreciate the moves that Brad has made we have to look really closely to the Bucks, Clippers, and Suns and recognize how poorly these moves have worked out thus far.

Brad brought in not one but two all-star caliber players who don’t need to be ball dominant and fit perfectly within our system. Neither was a disgruntled player like Bradley Beal, Damian Lillard, or James Harden.

Then you look at teams like the Lakers who largely just decided to run it back as if Gabe Vincent was the missing piece or Miami who thought running it back as the 8 seed was the right choice to make. We could have done the same thing, it’s an easy decision to come to. Golden State was similar thinking all they had to do was add an aging Chris Paul.

When you’re a bottom-dweller team, you actually have far more freedom to make moves, but when you’re a contender you have to be careful or the results can be devastating. As I mentioned before these teams at least get draft help.

Of course, teams like Philly and Miami will make in-season moves with teams that decide to go into rebuilding like Chicago, but I don’t think we’re going to see any players available that would have been better fits than Jrue and Kristaps, not to mention we’ll have had a full season with them to mesh before the playoffs and I still think we’ll add some depth to the bench.